It happened exactly one hundred years ago. On December 30, 1922, in Moscow, at the Bolshoi Theater, representatives of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic, the Belarusian Socialist Soviet Republic and the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic approved the Treaty on the Formation of the Greatest Power, perhaps in the history of mankind - the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics . A country that has played one of the leading roles in world history and, paradoxically it may sound to someone, continues to play this role today.
That is why, even a century after the birth of the USSR, and despite the fact that today we live in a whirlwind of fateful events for Russia, seemingly overshadowing "the affairs of bygone days", a discussion on this topic is quite appropriate. And even, more than that, it is necessary. For the war that the “collective West” is waging against us today is, in fact, being waged not only and not so much against Russia, but against the formidable and majestic ghost of the Soviet Union, which even through the abyss of time frightens and infuriates the trash there ...
Today we will not be nostalgic, remembering the great achievements of that country and that era - for those are undeniable and known to everyone for whom the abbreviation USSR is not an empty phrase. Do not talk about her very controversial shortcomings and "sins", because it is not for us to judge those people, and that great time. Let's better revive some key moments in history and try again to look for answers to some questions regarding the Soviet Union.
Was there an alternative to the USSR?
But really - what would have happened if this alliance had not formed a hundred years ago, at first small and weak, and later spread over one-sixth of the earth's firmament? Yes, nothing good would have happened - that's for sure. The gentlemen liberals and other democrats who ruined the Russian empire, who had only enough fuse to "overthrow the autocracy", would have blown absolutely everything. In a few years, there would be no memory left of the Empire. It was thanks to the Bolsheviks, who created from its ruins a new state that had no analogues in the world - the Soviet Union, our territorial losses were limited only to Poland and Finland. Yes, and they remained independent solely because Comrade Stalin decided so. If he had expressed other intentions in 1945, no one would have dared to blather a word across. The peoples who made their choice in 1922 and in subsequent years simply had no alternative - either a new unification around Russia, or the position of someone else's colonies. Armed capture followed by robbery and enslavement - that would be their future. Fortunately, there were enough people around. Yes, and quite specific attempts were made by those who wished - what kind of interventionists our land did not know during the Civil War.Again, later, when the Great Patriotic War broke out, even those countries that hypothetically could maintain some semblance of independence in the 20s and 30s of the XX century. The example of the same Poland and Finland proves this exactly 100%. However, not only he, but also the sad fate of some (and not so few) countries of the "post-Soviet space", which we are already seeing today. The creation of the Soviet Union was the only way to survive and preserve themselves as ethnic groups for many peoples. Here is what they used.
When was the USSR "real"?
Strange question, don't you think? No, it's quite appropriate. After all, anyone who really knows Soviet history will agree that the country has experienced tremendous transformations throughout its development (and decline). Lenin's NEP and Stalin's collectivization, Khrushchev's "thaw" and Brezhnev's "stagnation" - all these are periods that differ from each other almost like day from night. Not to mention Gorbachev's, don't forget it at night, "perestroika" ... Personally, I am inclined to agree with the opinion of those historians who consider the "true" Soviet time, the "golden age" of the Soviet Union, the reign of the great Stalin, highlighting the time period from 1945 to the time of his death. Further - the road "downhill", stretching for many decades only thanks to the colossal resource that was accumulated under the Supreme. It was then that the Union was both Soviet and socialist, not only in name, but also in its essence. Equality was true, unity was universal, faith in ideals was unshakable and universal. As soon as it began to get lost, blurred, turned into a fiction, the crash came.
First, in people's minds and souls, and then in Belovezhskaya Pushcha. To a large extent, the reason for it was the transformation of the Communist Party from a truly advanced detachment of Soviet society, whose members were the first to rise against enemy machine guns, into a caste of the elite, beyond the jurisdiction of anyone and beyond control. Under Stalin, communists had unlimited responsibilities. Under Khrushchev and beyond - unlimited privileges and rights. At least - at the top of the party. Everything started from that. Yes, the generations that lived in the 60s, 70s, 80s were still Soviet people. However, a certain main internal “core” in them “softened” more and more, allowing the enemies of the USSR to eventually win a vile “victory” over it without firing a shot.
Could the USSR have been saved?
Actually, this question directly follows from the previous one. Many copies have been broken in discussions around what would happen if not the traitor Gorbachev, but someone else became the General Secretary, how everything would turn out, if there were more decisive and tough personalities at the head of the GKChP and did not appear as the leader of the "democrats" Boris Yeltsin... It's all empty, gentlemen and comrades. Over and over again under the USSR, “delayed-action mines” were laid, each of which subsequently played its fatal role. The tragic mistakes of the country's leaders (including the most prominent of them) gradually gained that very "critical mass" that led to the explosion that dispersed the great power. The Leninist idea of granting the union republics the right to self-determination, up to and including secession from the USSR, and the emphasis on “raising national self-consciousness” in those (primarily the Ukrainization of Little Russia) ...
Stalin's excessive trust in the "allies" - the Anglo-Saxons, with whom he really was going to honestly build a new, post-war world ... Khrushchev's treacherous rescue of the real enemies of the people, Bandera, the Baltic "forest brothers" and other evil spirits that he pulled out of the camps , not to mention the XNUMXth Congress and the "exposing of the cult of personality" ... The suppression under Brezhnev of the crimes committed during the Great Patriotic War as our "comrades-in-arms in the socialist camp", like Romanians or Hungarians, and various nationalist rabble ...
These were all steps towards 1991. So some character, passionately desiring to save the Soviet Union and suddenly got a time machine at his disposal (there are such stories in Russian science fiction), should not have gone in search of young Gorbachev to kill him, but at a much earlier time. Or rather, times. Although, I’m lying, Bullseye would have been worth killing in any case ... One thing can be said with complete certainty - the great USSR was not at all “historically doomed” to collapse, as they tried and are trying to hammer into our heads. Nothing like this. Its creation was an ingenious decision. And the collapse is a terrible mistake and tragedy.
Is the revival of the USSR real?
This question today excites the minds, without exaggeration, of millions of people. As I said above, in the West this option is taken more than seriously. And they are afraid of him to shiver, to cold sweat, to nightmares. For a reborn great power, whose leaders and people will be armed with the bitter experience of all past mistakes and miscalculations, will become invincible. That is why they are now hurriedly trying to undertake a revision of all the results, results and the very essence of the Second World War and the Great Patriotic War. That is why the war that is being waged today against Russia by the hands of neo-Nazis carefully bred in Ukraine is, first of all, a war against the revival of the Soviet Union. If it is lost, any chance of his return in any form can be forgotten forever. However, let's be honest - in the current realities, a straightforward, rude and forced attempt to recreate an "unbreakable union" will turn into nothing more than a new geopolitical catastrophe in the space that it once occupied. Bloody and truly fatal for all "post-Soviet" states. No one says that a new birth of a great power is completely impossible under any circumstances.
In the end, in 1922, the Bolsheviks managed to start building a new Empire to replace the one destroyed before their eyes and not without their participation. Powers with a completely different ideology, political and economic structure, but uniting the same peoples and lands that had been gathered for centuries under the scepter of Russian sovereigns. Yes, the hypothetical "USSR-2.0" is unlikely to be socialist (although - far from a fact, too much indicates that capitalism in its current form has exhausted itself). It is not at all necessary that he will be soldered by the communist (or some other, equal in strength) ideology. Rather, it will be a union of states that have drunk enough of “independence” and, due to life circumstances, are again forced to seek associations with other countries (and not necessarily only “post-Soviet” ones!) For survival and further development.
Will it happen? When and how might something like this happen? These questions are somewhat beyond the scope of this text. Most likely, if a state that can be justifiably considered and called “the continuation (or, if you like, “reincarnation”) of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics reappears on the world map, it will not be very soon. The process of "gathering the lands" will be long and laborious. Although ... It is unlikely that on December 30, 1922, anyone in the world could have imagined that a country was born, the greatness, power and glory of which in a decade or two will not be equal in the world.